Unfinished Draft of a Poem which 

may be entitled 

"iEschylus' Soliloquy" 




BY 

ROBERT BROWNING 



Wcto gorfe 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

All rights reser'ved 



Unfinished Draft of a Poem which 

may be entitled 

"^schylus' Soliloquy" 



BY 

ROBERT BROWNING 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

^913 

All rights reserved 



Q^c^% 






Copyright, 1913, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 

IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






J 




'^SCHYLUS' SOLILOQUY' 



UNFINISHED DRAFT OF A POEM 
WHICH MAY BE ENTITLED 
'^SCHYLUS' SOLILOQUY.' 

At the sale of the Browning MSS on 
May 2, 1913, this MS. was catalogued as : 

Lot 188. Browning (R.) Auto. Draft of 
a poem, in blank verse, 4 pp. 8vo., un- 
finished and perhaps unpublshed, appar- 
ently intended for ' Aristophanes' Apology,' 
but not used, beginning : 

* I am an old and solitar>^ man.' 

This description is correct in so far as 
the poem has never bef are been published. 

Closer examination showed, however, 
that this is not a draft for ' Aristophanes' 
Apology,' but a soliloquy cf the aged 
^schylus. just befare the prophecy as to 
his death was fulfilled by an eagle "dropping 
a tortoise upon his head. 

The poem has been printed according 
to the original MS., now in the British 
Museum, as it reads with the poet's vari- 
ants and queries. In line 56, ' Dephos ' 
is obviously a slip of the pen for ' Delphos,' 
and in line 59 'rush' seems the best in- 
terpretation of an illegible word, of which 
the MS. contains many. — Editor.] 

I AM an old and solitary man 

And now at set of sun in Sicily 

I sit down in the middle of this plain 

Which drives between the mountains and 

the sea 
Its blank of nature. If a traveller came 
Seeing my bare bald skull and my still 

brows 
And massive features coloured to a stone, 
The tragic mask of a humanity 
W^hose past is played to an end, — he 

might mistake me 
10 For some god Terminus set on these flats 
Of broken marble Faunus. Let it be. 
Life has ebbed from me — I am on dry 

ground — 
All sounds of life I held so thunderous sweet 
Shade off to silence — all the perfect shapes 
Born of perception and men's images 

(imagery ?) 
Which thronged against the outer rim of 

earth 
And hung with floating faces over it 
Grow dim and dimmer — all the motions 

drawn 
From Beauty in action which spun audibly 
20 My brain round in a rapture, have grown 

still. 
There's a gap 'twixt me and the life once 

mine, 



30 



Now others' and not mine, which now soars 

off 
In gradual declination — till at last 
I hear it in the distance droning small 
Like a bee at sunset. Ay, and that bee's 

hum 
The buzzing fly and mouthing of the grass 
Cropped slowly near me by some strange 

sheep 
Are strange to me with life — and separate 

from me 
The outside of my being — I myself 
Grow to the silence, fasten to the calm 
Of inorganic nature . . . sky and rocks 
I win pass on into their unity 
When dying down into impersonal dust. 

Ah, ha — these flats are wide ! 
The prophecy which said the house would 

faU, 
And thereby crush me, must bring down 

the sky. 
The only roof above me where I sit 
Or ere it prove its oracle to-day. 
Stand fast ye pillars of the constant 

heavens 
As life doth in me — I who did not die 40 
That day in Athens, when the people's 

scorn 
Hissed toward the sun as if to darken it 
Because my thoughts burned too much for 

the eyes 
Over my head, because I spoke my Greek 
Too deep down in my soul to suit their 

case.' 
Who did not die to see the solemn vests 
Of my white chorus round the thymele 
Flutter like doves, and sweep back like a 

cloud 
Before the shrill lipped people . . . but 

stood calm 
And cold, and felt the theatre wax hot 
With mouthing whispers . . . the i 

/Eschylus 
Is gray I fancy — and his wrinkles ridge 
The smoothest of his phrases — or the 

times 
Have grown too polished for this old rough 

work — 
We have no Sphynxes in the Parthenon, 
Nor any flints at Dephos — or forsooth 
I think the Sphynxes wrote this Attic 

Greek — 
Our Sophocles hath something more than 
this 

(Cast out on — their rush I would 

not die) ? 
At this time by the crushing of a house 60 
Who lived that Day out ... I would go to 

death 
With voluntary and majestic steps 
Yon thundering on the right hand. Let it 
be. 



50 



f97 1913 



' MSCHYLUS' SOLILOQUY ' 



I am an old and solitary man 
Mine eyes feel dimly out the setting sun 
Which drops its great red fruit of bitterness 
To-day as other days, as every day 
Within the patient waters. What do I say ? 
I whistle out my scorn against the men 
Who (knell) his trilogy morn noon and 

night 
And set this tragic world against the sun — 
Forgive me, great Apollo. — Bitter fruit 
lo I think we never found that holy sun 
Or ere with conjurations of our hands 
Drove up the saltness of our hearts to it 
A blessed fruit, a full Hesperian fruit 
Which the fair sisters with their starry eyes 
Did warm to scarlet bloom. O holy sun 
My eyes are weak and cannot hold thee 

round ! 
But in my large soul there is room for thee. 
All human wrongs and shames cast out 

from it, — 
And I invite thee, sun, to sphere thyself 
20 In my large soul, and let my thoughts in 

white 
Keep chorus round thy glory — Oh the 

days 
In which I sate upon Hymettus the hill 
missus seeming louder : and the groves 
Of blessed olive thinking of their use 
A little tunicked child and felt my 

thoughts ( ?) 
Rise past the golden bees against thy face 
Great sun upon the sea. The city lay 
Beneath me like an eaglet in an egg. 
The beak and claws shut whitely up in 

calm — ^ 
^o And calm were the great waters — and the 

hills 
Holding at arm's length their unmolten 

snows 
Plunged in the light of heaven which 

trickled back 
On all sides, a libation to the world. 

There I sate a child 
Half hidden in purple thyme with knees 

drawn up 
By clasping of my little arms, and cheek 
Laid slant across them with obtruded nose 
And full eyes gazing . . . ay, my eyes 

climbed up 
Against the heated metal of thy shield 
Till their persistent look clove through the 

fire 
40 And struck it into many folded fires ( ?) 
And opened out the secret of the night 
Hid in the day-source Darkness mixed with 

light. 
Then shot innumerous arrows in my eyes 



Drove 



From all sides of the Heavens — so blind- 
ing me — 
As countless as the norland snowflakes fell 
Before the north winds — rapid, wonderful. 
Some shafts as bright as sun rays nine 

times drawn 
Thro' the heart of the sun — some black as 

night in Hell — 
All mixed, sharp, driven against me ! and 

as I gazed 
(For I gazed still) I saw the sea and earth 50 
Leap up as wounded by the innumerous 

shafts 
And hurry round, and whirl into a blot 
Across which evermore fell thick the shafts 
As norland snow falls thick before the 

wind ( ? flakes fall) 
Until the northmen at the cavern's mouth 
Can see no pine tree through. I could see 

nought 
No earth, no sea, no sky, no sun itself. 
Only that arrowy rush of black and white 
Across a surf of rainbows infinite 
And through it all Homerous the blind man 60 
Did chant his vowelled music in my brain, 
piercing ? ? 1 

pressing ? j and blinding and as- 
tonishing 

And then it was revealed, it was revealed 
That I should be a priest of the Unseen 
And build a bridge of sounds across the 

straight 
From Heaven to earth whence all the Gods 

might walk 
Nor bend it with their soles ( ?) 
And then I saw the Gods tread past me slow 
From out the portals of the hungry dark 
And each one, as he passed, breathed in 7o 

my face 
And made me greater — First old Saturn 

came 
Blind with eternal watches — calm and 

blind — 
Then Zeus— his eagle blinking on his wrist 1 ^ 
To his hand's rod of fires— in thunder rolls j 
He glode [on grandly — While the troop 

of Prayers 

Buzzed dimly in the | shadow j ^^ ^^^ ^^'^^^ 
With murmurous sounds, and poor be- 
seeching tears. 
And Neptune with beard and locks drawn 

straight 
As seaweed — ay and Pluto with his Dark 
Cutting the dark as Lightning cuts the sun 80 
Made individual by intensity. 
And then Apollo trenching on the dark 
With a white glory, while the lute he bore 
Struck on the air 



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